NEW DELHI: Hours after the Supreme Court ordered a three member committee to look into the Pegasus issue, former Congress Chief Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday welcomed the step saying the party’s stand has been vindicated as even the Prime Minister is not above the nation.
Addressing a special press conferernce here at the party headquarters here, Rahul Gandhi said, “During the last Parliament session, we had raised this issue of Pegasus, because we felt that it was an attack on the democratic structure, on the foundations of our nation and we had jointly blocked Parliament. So, today the Supreme Court has given its opinion and basically supported what we were saying.”
He said that what the Congress was asking three basic questions. “Who authorised Pegasus, which agency, which person authorised Pegasus? Who are the victims of Pegasus? Who is it used against?”
He said that because there is a list of people including politicians, opposition leaders, BJP members, Supreme Court people, so there is a Chief Justice of India, there is a list of people, so we asked who were these people that have been attacked and the final thing, was and I think, this is a very important thing.
“Did any other country have access to information of our people, were they privy, was this data kept with them and we didn’t get any answer. In fact, no reply was given to us,” he alleged.
The Congress leader said that Pegasus is an attempt to crush Indian democracy. “It is an attempt to make sure that the vibrancy of the democracy, the conversation that take place in a democracy are crushed and people are controlled,” he said, adding that it is a big step that the Supreme Court has said that they are going to look into this matter.
To a question what will be his next step, Rahul Gandhi said: “This is now going to be looked at by the court, but, as I said, central institutions of this country were attacked by Pegasus.”
“We all know that, that’s not the only attack that is taking place, many different ways in which the idea of India is being attacked. Pegasus is, of course, a particularly nasty and subversive way of doing it,” he said.
“We will raise this again and we will try to have a debate in Parliament and I am pretty sure the BJP would not like that debate so they will make sure that the debate is stalled,” he said.
Slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi said, “Pegasus is illegal. It is not legal in India to do snooping using Pegasus. So, we would like to know, why the Prime Minister is doing an illegal act. He is not above the nation. He is not above the institutions.”
The Parliament’s Monsoon Session was washed due to Pegasus scandal. Opposition party leaders raised the issue in Lok Sabha as well as Rajya Sabha accusing the government of using the Pegasus spyware.